Friday, March 30, 2012

The Mind of God Part 2: We Are All Judges

The Mind of God Part 2: We Are All Judges

To start I want to breifly address the issue of misguided terminology and the word faith once more, so that it's been stated as a part of this series. 'Faith', amongst other words, is, in my opinion, one of the most misused terms. I hear a lot of people trying to use "faith" as if it were tied down only to Religion. I'm sure a few of you remember me touching on this briefly in some old posts, but I think it's important to reiterate. Faith is trust in your beliefs. Belief is personal. Either you believe in this or in that, in some thing or in no thing, in Science or Religion, fact or fiction, we all have belief and because our beliefs are what we hold true to ourselves, we put our trust in their validity. We put our faith in what we believe to be true. Plain and simple.

Saying that Faith is a silly thing is saying that belief is a silly thing and it's time we end this war on the word "faith" because, though it holds association with Religion, it should not. It's a vital word that lends itself to a certain description beyond the simple word trust. If someone says "I trust you", that's pretty good. If someone says, "I have faith in you." That sounds even better. Both sentences mean the same thing, but one carries a certain emotional weight to it that the other does not. Trust and faith are the same, both connect to belief, if you have faith or put trust in someone, you believe in them.

Misguided terminology runs rampant amongst humans. Its sibling is of course, misinterpretation. Both lead to misinformation. The spread of this misinformation is what promotes and makes way to further misgivings and misunderstandings, and the more we break all these down we will see that there is so much being missed. That is the prefix afterall. And all of these things are the components of Judgment.
I think an essential step to understanding "The Mind of God" is working tirelessly, throughout your life, to do away with misguided terminology, misinterpretation, and misunderstanding to help not lead to misinformation. A synonym to serve simpler purpose throughout this post would be the word "bias". Bias also being a synonym for "prejudice". Are you starting to see how such simple things are so incredibly connected, and how they lead to dangerous conclusions? No one wants to be prejudiced against (in their right minds at least), to experience bias, and to represent misinformation. But that is life. We are all guilty of degrees of these things from birth until death, of passing judgment onto others. To be completely pure of this is impossible, but we can try our damnedest to be us uncharacteristic of these things as possible. There is accomplishment in that. All of us are inevitably guilty of doing these things. If you believe you have never and will never judge another person, I can guarantee you've already done it and will continue to do so until the day you die. And it's okay. We're only human.

Misguided terminology is much of what I prefaced in Part 1, that because of certain influence, bias, misrepresentation, misunderstandings, we associate specific things with nonspecific things. Like when I say God, you may think Christianity or Judaism, or when I say Allah you may think Islam. But it's only because of thousands of years of specific Religious and non Religious influences that we are led to paint the face of various things or people onto the face of God. God does not have a face, you cannot picture God. God is humanized by our necessity to understood its mysticism.

Humans also seem to have an innate need and desire to classify, our instinct to judge. Social groups exist in thousands of species of animals, ours just so happen to be the most extreme and the most dangerous. Because of our need to classify, we need terms and basic understandings, or representations, of who these groups are, what they do, what they think and feel, and how we can classify them. In a Religious way, I am often asked, "What Religion are you?" I would answer. Then the follow up question is usually, "What denomination?" In other words, "That's too broad. I need to know what niche you belong to so I can get an automatic sense for who you are based on the doctrine of the denomination you belong you." Or, to simplify, "I need to know how to judge you based upon social stereotypes."

Religion is only one example and not even the greatest, but it is the easiest. We do this with our eyes more than anything. We classify based upon everything we see and then the things we hear. What color is your skin, what is your language, accent, clothing, shoes, hairstyle, do you have piercings, tattoos, small frame, big frame, pretty much everything you can think of. Some studies say that people pass judgment onto others within twenty seconds of meeting or observing them. That actually seems high to me. From personal experience, it seems like it would be something closer to five or ten seconds. But regardless, we all do it because we do; it's in our nature. But what we know of humans is that we are capable of going against that nature.

I'm baffled by the amount of times I've seen someone post something on social networking sites that says, to the effect, "Don't judge me, it says more about you than it does me." Then after scrolling down or briefly browsing through their page, I can usually find something within that same twenty second mark that refutes their desire to be treated fairly. They've judged someone else, said how stupid someone was, sworn at some public figure they disliked, shown negativity to another social group for being unlike them, and on and on. Politics are always a big factor. Left or Right. Red or Blue. I'm willing to bet that if I said I was a Republican I would lose a lot of credibility and respect from a lot of you. What if I was? What if I'm not? Does it matter? Why does my belief in something personal that doesn't harm you seem to upset you? Because we innately would not agree on many issues simply by me saying three words, "I'm a Republican."

I'm not. But I'm not a Democrat either. It isn't because I don't find merit in either platform, it's because I like to be me above all other things. Just as I say "I am a Christian" but do not have a denomination. You would then think, "Ah, non-denominational." But even that term has its own weight about it that lets you classify me. The most important thing to know about one another is that we all wish not to be judged and yet we do it regardless. We are all hypocrites. Accept this. No one is perfect. Again, it is impossible not to judge or classify or even stereotype, but the goal is to try your hardest not to do so, to be as kind, loving, and accepting as you can possibly be.

Because of this, we can revert back to the theory of Natural Concordance and Discordance (which drives nearly this entire series). We know what misinformation causes, what bias, prejudice, stereotyping, hypocrisy, and judgment does, it creates discordance. There is an inharmonious link to it because it distances two or more people and puts them at odds. But when we try to be less of all these things, try our hardest to be none of them at all, we're working to promote concordance. It's as simple as that. And all the shades of gray that exist in between.

Many Religious doctrines instruct their believers not to be Judges and not to judge one another, as that is God's job and not man's. Many of these Religious folk are often under fire for doing just the opposite of this, and seeming to place their wants and desires onto the shoulders of "God" and swear that what they judge has only been instructed unto them by "God." I put God in quotes here only because these people are doing what we all do, attempting to validate our potential faults by believing in them as divine truth and holding steadfastly to them. This is dangerous and ultimately wrong. As I've said before, God, Love, does not work on your terms, rather you must work on its. Because of the theory of Natural Concordance and Discordance, there exists, based on my definition of it, a necessity for acceptance and for the pursuit of wisdom and Love above judgment. I've heard lots of people say about others they don't care for, "I'm a pretty good judge of character". But they're not psychologists or psychiatrists, therapists, or doctors of any kind that would be deemed "suitable" to judging the human condition. And more importantly, they are not God. Anyone who says they speak on behalf of God should be taken only at face value. (Myself included!) If we "speak" on behalf of God then what we're really doing is communicating how we feel and utilizing God as our means of justification.

The knowledge not to judge may not exist in all people. Maybe some cultures are raised to believe judgment is a great and noble thing, but I doubt that it gets them very far. Remember, judgment encourages discordance and upsets the balance, tipping the scales in the favor of inharmony. If my hypothesis is that God is Love, and that Love is loosely defined in part as harmonious agreement, then judgment has no place here. Acceptance for being different, as it has been preached by the masses regardless of belief, is the answer. It seems silly to have to hear it again because you probably hear it several times in the span of a week. But, after today, seriously begin to break down your potential judgments, not just of people, but of everything. By sound, sight, taste, touch, and smell. You'll be surprised to find that you are in fact a walking, talking judge of all things living or not. It is our shared flaw. It is the dark side of the golden rule, the sickening need for "justice" which is a synonym for using "God" as a justification for bad means. We judge because we have been judged, we act against others because others have acted against us, we do unto others as has been done unto us out of vindication. The more your unfondness of others grows, the more you will become an unfond person, the more you judge, the more you will be judged, the more discoradance you create, the more discordance will be created in your life. But this is a bastardization of the golden rule, it is "Do unto others as you would have done unto you", create concordance as you yourself would like to see it done in your life, not the other way around.

Though it is in our nature to react sharply, remember that you are capable of reacting coolly. Because you become aware of the fact that you are, and always will be, guilty of casting judgment and of being a hypocrite, you can now work toward making it less and less. It will never vanish, but that is not the point. Just as world peace is impossible, it is in never giving up the fight for world peace that we find victory.

The blood within us all runs red, we are connected by a through line of what promotes concordance and discordance in the Universe. If you wish to be one who spreads harmony, become more aware of your self. The self is a tricky and subconsciously deceitful thing. You put blind faith in your self. Blind faith, as you know, is not as solid as pure faith. Blind faith runs low on justifications, pure faith seeks to constantly become more aware, more solid, and more justified. Blind faith is taught not to question, pure faith should questiong everything. Blind faith is stagnant, pure faith is always evolving.

The Mind of God exists in the purely nonjudgmental energy of concordance. The energy, matter, that makes up all things, God, as an energetic being of Love which seeks to promote harmony, is able to work in blacks and whites because God is not human. Because of this, God must understand the dangers of judgment, and would seek to rid the world of it because it begets prejudice, amongst other hateful and violent things.

A lot of people think it's good, healthy, and funny not to hold their tongue, that just because you have the right to free speech means you should use it unabashedly. Don't be like these people. Don't speak before you think. Don't tell others that, with your apparent freedoms and right to speak, with your wisdom and good judgment that you will remove the speck from their eye when you've looked past the log in your own.

I know what you're thinking (should be thinking) at this point. If I have acknowledged the existence of natural concordance and discordance, and attributed Love and concordance with God, then why does discordance (bad or evil) still exist? Why does not pure harmony exist because that is apparently what you claim God to be made of? And that, I will say, will be the topic of discussion next week, because it's an iceberg of a topic, and one that takes a great deal of care, caution.and compassion to understand.